Trump's Military Diplomacy: Removing Dictators, Blocking Defense Rights with Economic Sanctions, and Punishing Domestically
The Trump administration has reverted to military diplomacy, preemptively blocking defense rights with economic sanctions and imposing imperialism through domestic law to execute dictators.
This appears to be a clear violation of the UN Charter, which prohibits a state from using force against another state's sovereign territory without its consent, self-defense, or UN Security Council authorization.
Regarding President Trump's "Operation Absolute Resolve," US media outlets reported that the plan to capture Maduro had been in progress for four months. A summary of foreign media reports on the operation's progress is as follows:
CIA agents secretly entered Venezuela in August.
Starting in September, attacks on "drug boats" began in the Caribbean off Venezuela, spurring public opinion.
With the help of covert drones and CIA informants within the Maduro government, Maduro's every move was monitored. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the United States knew where Maduro slept, what he ate, and even what pets he had.
In Kentucky, the U.S. military built a life-size replica of one of the six to eight sites where Maduro was hiding.
U.S. Army Delta Force special forces practiced their assaults, breaking down steel doors at an increasingly rapid pace.
As the Caribbean weather cleared and Maduro decided to remain at the base where he trained, the special forces launched a nighttime assault on Venezuela.
First, a cyberattack cut off power to much of the capital, Caracas, allowing 150 U.S. aircraft, drones, and helicopters to approach undetected.
They bombed radar and air defense facilities and landed the special forces at Venezuela's most fortified military base.
The Delta Force special forces blew open the door and found Maduro three minutes later.
The capture operation lasted a little over two hours.
Trump followed the action remotely. "I literally watched it like I was watching a TV show," Trump told Fox News.
He later posted an image showing Maduro blindfolded and handcuffed.
The Cuban government announced its first official death toll from the US airstrikes in Venezuela on Tuesday, saying 32 Cuban officers had been killed over the weekend.
A Cuban government statement on state television said the Cuban military and police officers were on a mission being carried out by the Caribbean nation's military at the request of the Venezuelan government.
The Associated Press reported, "While it's unclear what the Cubans were doing in Venezuela, Cuba is a close ally of the Venezuelan government and has sent military and police forces to assist in operations for years, and rumors of casualties in the late-night attacks circulated in Cuba over the weekend."
"A lot of Cubans were killed yesterday," Trump told reporters on a flight from his Florida vacation home to Washington on Tuesday night. "There was a lot of death on the other side. There was no death on our side."
The Cuban government announced two days of mourning for the fallen Cuban officers, with an official statement stating, "Our compatriots, faithful to their responsibilities for security and defense, carried out their duties with dignity and heroism, and died in fierce resistance, either in direct combat with the attackers or in the bombing of their facilities."
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, on the 4th pointed out Cuba's intervention in Venezuela, saying Maduro's internal security apparatus was led by Cubans and that they were "supporting Maduro."
Rubio told reporters, "All the guards protecting Maduro—this is well known—all their intelligence agencies were staffed with Cubans."
Thirty-six years ago, under the Bush administration, six months before the Norie raid in Panama, the White House, relying on a 1989 legal opinion by then-Assistant Attorney General Bill Barr, stated that while the UN Charter prohibits the use of force in international relations, it does not prohibit the United States from conducting "forcible kidnappings" abroad to enforce domestic law.
The AP reported on the 4th that “Supreme Court decisions dating back to the 1800s have recognized the United States’ jurisdiction to prosecute foreign nationals regardless of whether their presence was legally guaranteed,” and that “as in the Noriega case, Maduro’s defense team is expected to argue, under international and U.S. law, that the arrest is legal and that he is immune from prosecution as a head of state, but this is unlikely to succeed.”
The AP continued by saying that regarding the issue of immunity, “legal experts say it was largely resolved legally in Noriega’s trial,” and that “while Trump’s ordering of the operation in Venezuela raises constitutional concerns because it was not authorized by Congress, now that Maduro is in the United States, the court is likely to approve his prosecution because, as with Noriega, the United States does not recognize him as the legitimate leader of Venezuela.”
Dick Gregory, a retired federal prosecutor who prosecuted Noriega and later investigated corruption within the Maduro government, told the AP, "You can't claim sovereign immunity unless you recognize him as head of state. Multiple U.S. administrations, both Republican and Democratic, have withheld U.S. recognition of his election, calling it fraudulent. Unfortunately for Maduro, that means he's the one who has to deal with this."
The biggest obstacle to Maduro's legal battle in the U.S. is the financial burden of U.S. sanctions, which make it difficult to secure legal representation.
The AP reported, "Maduro's challenge is securing legal representation. He and his wife, Cilia Flores, a lawyer under arrest, have been under U.S. sanctions for years, making it illegal for Americans to receive money from them without Treasury Department approval."
The Caracas government, currently led by Maduro's Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, may want to foot the bill, but it faces restrictions on doing business in the United States.
The United States has previously indicted other foreign leaders on corruption and drug trafficking charges while in office. Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was convicted of drug trafficking and weapons charges in a New York court on June 26, 2024, and sentenced to 45 years in prison.
Trump announced plans to pardon Hernández in November of last year, at a time when the US had already begun a campaign to capture Maduro and encircle the Caribbean through naval diplomacy.
The US requested Hernández's extradition from Honduras just weeks after he left office.
After Noriega was captured by US forces, he was a CIA operative who had been an asset before becoming a drug trafficking dictator and had built a political base in Panama.
The US Department of Justice implemented a new policy requiring the Attorney General to personally sign off on indictments of sitting foreign presidents, a policy that had foreign policy implications. Maduro could make a slightly stronger argument that he deserves more limited immunity, at least for official acts performed as de facto leader, since this does not depend on whether he is a recognized head of state by the United States.
A New York court sentenced former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández to 45 years in prison for colluding with drug traffickers who bribed him over a decade to allow more than 400 tons of cocaine to flow into the United States.
Judge P. Kevin Castel sentenced Hernández to 45 years in a U.S. prison and fined him $8 million, saying the sentence should serve as a warning to "well-educated and well-dressed" people who gain power and believe their position protects them from justice when they commit wrongdoing.
A jury convicted him in March after a two-week trial in Manhattan federal court.
In court, Hernández declared, "I am innocent," and "I was wrongfully accused." In several interrupted, impromptu remarks, he portrayed himself as a hero of the anti-drug trafficking movement, having collaborated with U.S. authorities to curb drug imports under three U.S. presidential administrations.
However, the judge argued that the trial evidence contradicted this, stating that Hernández used "considerable pretense" to portray himself as an anti-drug trafficking activist and, when necessary, mobilized police and military forces to protect the drug trade.
Shortly after receiving the pardon, the former Honduran president thanked Trump for the first time since his public appearance.
Hernández, 55, served two terms as leader of the Central American nation of about 10 million people.
He was arrested at his home in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, three months after leaving office in 2022, and was extradited to the United States in April of that year, where he remains in custody. U.S. prosecutors accused Hernández of collaborating with drug traffickers since 2004 and accepting millions of dollars in bribes as he rose from a rural congressman to president of the National Assembly and then to the country's highest office.
Hernández admitted in his trial testimony that drug money had been distributed to nearly every political party in Honduras, but denied accepting any bribes himself.
Hernández, in a statement released on June 26, 2024, after the sentencing, said the trial was "unjust" because the jury was unable to include evidence that would have resulted in a not-guilty verdict. He added that he was "persecuted by politicians and drug traffickers."
Curtis Bradley, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School and former State Department international law adviser, told the Associated Press that "Maduro's right to self-defense is significantly challenged. The government should not be considered an official act for operating a large-scale drug trafficking organization."
The unsealed US indictment against Maduro accuses him of providing law enforcement and logistical support for the smuggling of thousands of tons of cocaine into the United States, and of facilitating it through "collaboration with some of the world's most violent and aggressive drug traffickers and narco-terrorists."
See <Venezuela's Interim President Rodriguez: 'Flawless Left' Former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Economy, January 4, 2026>
<US Military Operations in Latin America Intervene Politically; German Chancellor 'Rejects Europe', December 10, 2025>
<Venezuela's Failed Pro-US Coup Raises International Tensions, May 3, 2019>
<US Transforms Venezuela from Longtime Friend to Strife: Rubio's 'Elimination of Cuba', December 21, 2025>